Need a new scanner, what to get?

[Dubby]

Okay, ATM, I have an HP All-In-One Scanner.

The problem? Scans are too sharp. Even if I blur in photoshop, they're still not good enough for me to work with.

(both in color for sake of comparison)

My scan: http://i35.tinypic.com/skujyd.jpg
I want: http://i36.tinypic.com/30su6i1.jpg

Compare softness. I want like that last one scan. ;~;

What's a good scanner that can give me that desired softness, and doesn't scan as sharply as my scanner? ^^; I'm thinking Canon, but I'm hoping I don't have to go past the 150~ range because I'm kinda poor. >_< And I've never used a Canon scanner, so I'm not sure of quality.

Thanks a lot in advance.

P.S: If you think it's possible for me to scan my images like I want them to with my current scanner, please tell me how. ^^; I've tried to download 20 million scanning programs, and not one of them let me lower the sharpness like I desire. >_< If you can recommend any... again, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks a lot!

EDIT: I was looking online and came upon these two scanners I might be interested in buying: Click Click - Thoughts?

[daikaku]

It's not the scanner, but the settings. Judging from that picture you're currently scanning in 8bit, but for what you want, you'll have to scan in 16bit.

Anyway, HP right? Once you open your scanning software(I assume HP Scanning) under your Scan menu goto Twain Settings, under the twain panel, under Quality vs. Speed check you scan with higher bit depths.

That should fix your problem.

[Dubby]

It's not the scanner, but the settings. Judging from that picture you're currently scanning in 8bit, but for what you want, you'll have to scan in 16bit.

Anyway, HP right? Once you open your scanning software(I assume HP Scanning) under your Scan menu goto Twain Settings, under the twain panel, under Quality vs. Speed check you scan with higher bit depths.

That should fix your problem.

I don't have a proper HP scanning software.

I tried to get HP Director, but can't find it anywhere, even after 3 hours of googling. ;__;

So... any scanning software that helps (>_>) changing those settings is good for me. >>

[daikaku]

HP Scanning should've came with your drivers, but Twain Settings are windows default, so any scanning software you use, or anything that uses twain should allow you to change them once you have it up.

[chiresakura]

I think your raw is beautiful.... ^^;

[Haynes]

I like your scan to, but I'm wondering what the finished product after being cleaned would look like. Any chance you could do that?

[Dubby]

The reason I dislike my raw is because when you clean it, there is 20 million specks of dust. ~__~

Just level it and try - too lazy to do so atm.

[Digitalr]

Why does it look blue anyway, it doesn't look like that whenever I scan something.. It's supposed to look dark

And you're right, it doesn't look good when levelled. Both black and white.

[Dubby]

Why does it look blue anyway, it doesn't look like that whenever I scan something.. It's supposed to look dark

And you're right, it doesn't look good when levelled. Both black and white.

It's magazine scan, and I scanned in color. >.>

I'll post a tanko raw just for the sake of it...

http://i37.tinypic.com/s4pedh.png

Resized since tinypic sucks, but you can still tell sharpness. >.>

[Digitalr]

Ugly greys, if those are the greys you get.. You need some other scanner or properly adjust your settings (try turning every option off)

[Dubby]

Ugly greys, if those are the greys you get.. You need some other scanner or properly adjust your settings (try turning every option off)

What's about the greys? >.>

Need to be more specific. ;~;

Also dai, sorry, but even scanning at higher depth really made no difference. >_>

[daikaku]

If changing the depth still didn't help, you might still have some auto-adjustment function on which aren't good manga scanning. Look through your settings are check off anything that's auto-adjusts anything, especially sharpen, since that's what you want to remove anyway.

[Loserbait]

I bought a CanoScan 8800F for the purpose of scanning manga. It's a great piece of hardware. I tend to find that scanning at an uber-resolution gets a clearer image which makes downsizing still look great. Generally, I scan at 600dpi and save at 300dpi but I'm starting to take a likening to 1200dpi -- again, I find a noticeable difference with my scans when I downsize to 300dpi rather than scan at 300dpi.

Also, hooray for saving greyscale as that; greyscale.

Also, it'll always look faded out to some extent, which is why you've gotta master leveling (in particular, using Curves in order to fully maximise the mid-ranges).

If you can, try to apply a little bit of pressure on all four corners of the page. Keep it even. I find the board on the scanner is too soft and pages still warp every now and then without putting some sort of weight (nothing too heavy!) on it. In my case, I just use my external hard drive ^^;

One last thing is that I always use a bit of black cardboard behind the page so ink on the other side of the page is kept to a minimum during scan. It'll help make the page you're scanning a bit clearer and sharper, too.

Please find attached a scan I've done fairly recently (600dpi scan // 150dpi save due to bandwidth).

Edit: I just did a very quick 2-minute job on your scan. See the second attachment for the results.

[Teekuh]

Not sure if this is what you are looking for.

your original:
http://i37.tinypic.com/s4pedh.png

my edit in photoshop:
http://i43.tinypic.com/t8ss1s.png

Just used a small amount of gaussian blur, some noise added and unsharpen mask to make it look like that.

If it is the desire result you search for, just use the above filters to get that effect and if you can't find the effects then I guess you should just send all your raws to me everytime so I can edit them :P

It shouldn't be needed to edit them in photoshop though, since I'm sure the scanner you have at the moment is capable of scanning images like that, you just have to find the right setting for it. Do advise finding software for your scanner, if you can't. Provide me with the exact name of yours and I'll search it for you.

Hope this helped a bit.
As side note: got a Canon MP510 myself and totaly adore it, it got many options and easy software to go with.

[wade69]

Your edited version just destroyed the art in that. You shouldn't even have to use filters for tanko scans. All you need to do is level..